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I'm seeing this ad, that a guy looked at a trousers, and said "four pleats". Then he asked another guy,

"how many pleats does this music have?"

Apparently the other guy never heard of such expression before, so he asked "what?". Then the first guy answered himself, "four".

This is the first time I ever heard of the word "pleat". I looked it up, and found it is only used to describe clothing, not for music.

I know the ad is trying to be creative, but don't know what the point it is trying to make by using the word "pleat".

Also, what it is correctly called, for music of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, etc?

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  • I think I have an answer, but I need the source to confirm. Do you have a link to the ad, or like a name or key word/phrase that I can search?
    – Em. ♦
    Jul 13, 2016 at 3:58
  • well, it is an ad, and it wasn't my intention to promote the ad, but since you asked, I looked for it and I've actually found it, the exact same ad as in here youtube.com/watch?v=y6yrTUoRdgE
    – xpt
    Jul 13, 2016 at 4:13
  • The man in pleats could retort that the Chevy will look dated in a few years, but classic khakis never go out of style. How much chrome do these pants have? A pair of khakis also last longer than a Chevy.
    – TimR
    Jul 13, 2016 at 11:48

2 Answers 2

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Well, to address your concern about why we need the source, before you provided the ad, I thought it was a play on words. Pleats almost sounds like beats and music certainly has beats.

However, now that we have the source, we notice that there is sharply dress man (the one who asks "Four pleats?") and the other guy. Instead of telling the other guy that his sense of style is poor, he takes him to car, plays the first track and asks, "How many pleats does this song have?" In other words

How many pleats are these guys wearing?

None. He plays the next song and asks about their pleats. In other words

How many pleats are these people wearing?

The song is "It's a Sunshine Day" performed by The Brady bunch enter image description here

How many pleats did they wear? (Presumably the men.) Four.

Hence, the sharply dressed man is implying that the other guy's sense of style is out of date. By association, we understand that the car being promoted is cool and sleek, like the sharply dressed man, by today's standards.

By the way, the 4/4 thing is called a time signature.

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  • Bravo. Thanks! Yeah, I was wondering why you put the ads in the question... now fully understand!
    – xpt
    Jul 13, 2016 at 13:36
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You can't use the term pleat for music outside the context of this advertisement. The first scene (with the trousers) establishes four pleats as a metaphor for the tastes of man of a certain age: no longer young, but not past it. It then goes on to use the four-pleat metaphor for the man's taste in music and cars.

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